Unearthing the nuggets

HRM caught up with Misty Reich – KFS UK’s VP and global HR Director – and discovered her helpful hints on employee recognition, improving the company’s working culture and spotting potential talent and leadership.

“I always tell people that in the U.S. our recognition culture is like 'RAH! RAH! RAH!' In the UK it's sort of 'rah.'”
-Misty Reich

What is the best thing about KFC's culture?

Misty Reich. When you think about the experience of having a job, and working, and what that feels like - which is what the culture is - it impacts your day-to-day performance; it impacts whether you want to stay there; it impacts how you feel about it and whether you want to invite other people to come to work there. I guess in times like this, when you might be tightening the belt around pay, around rewards and benefits, or even training, for some companies you would hope that you have a culture that's sticky enough, that makes people want to stay and has them engaged.

What would you say are your two or three most important components that make up that culture?

MR. Our employees tell us that recognition is one of the highlights of our culture. We believe that every human, no matter what country you live in or how senior you've become in your work career, likes to be recognized. And we do fun, silly, crazy recognition. Every leader in our company has a personal recognition award that represents something that they hold as a truth. So recognition is a hallmark that people would definitely mention.

As HR Director for KFC in the UK, what would you say your role is in defining and adapting and driving that culture?

MR. I think in our company, and it might be different for others, but our culture is defined.  We have what we call the 'How we win together' principles, and recognition is one of them, belief in all people is another, being customer maniacs.  So we've got that defined. I don't define that; I really believe in it. I don't adapt it, because it works.

The one caveat to that I would say is that as you go around the world, the recognition element, it exists everywhere, but the magnitude and the amplification and how it comes across is different.  So I always tell people that in the U.S. our recognition culture is like 'RAH! RAH! RAH!' In the UK it's sort of 'rah'.  So it might be that element.

So my role is really championing the culture and keeping it alive. I'm not defining it, I'm not adapting it; I've got the gift of a beautiful culture that's really already been cascaded effectively in the business. So I'm the keeper of the culture; I think it is my role. 

My top three priorities and the thing that I want my team to be famous for as an HR team is great recruitment, great people development, and building a culture that makes people want to come to work for KFC and stay. So that's the piece of the culture that I'm most focused on.

Could you share with us a major HR challenge you have faced, and touch upon some of the solution that you employed to overcome them?

MR. When I moved to the UK arm of the business in 2007, we didn't recruit as a business. We had outsourced our recruitment to agencies. We had 23 agencies that we were using to recruit, and we were spending a lot of money on those agencies. We didn't have a recruitment team internally, and one of the things that I know is that when you're in a growth business, as an HR director one of the things that you have to be able to do reliably and very well is recruit great talent. And we weren't doing that well.

So one of the things that I did, and it was a big challenge, was start to shift the mindset of the business around what the HR team is meant to be focused on. So we outsourced our recruitment at that time to agencies, we did all of the employee relations for our restaurants in-house, and what I wanted to do was turn that around. What we want to be famous for is great recruitment, people development.  We need to do employee relations well, but we don't need to be famous for that.

So that was a big mindset shift, and I would say that my HR team, and even the business, one, didn't necessarily believe that we could be recruiters, that we could bring that in-house. And two, from an HR standpoint they've grown up and been successful in their career being employee relations specialists. And they didn't know what I was trying to ask them to do or why that was a big idea, and we needed to make a big shift. So I think the first thing was winning the hearts and minds of the HR team and helping them understand that this journey of bringing recruitment in-house and that no one should be able to recruit people to our company better than we do, that that's a journey that we could win on, and that they could be successful and grow and develop.

So really spending time and talking to them about it in emotional terms and helping them see what the end result might be very tangibly. I brought the best recruiter who was on my recruitment team in the U.S. business for an eight-month assignment to England, and her only job was to teach my team how to recruit. Today we've got a great recruitment team and we've brought recruitment in-house. It's a signature differentiator for us two years later. We're not perfect, but we see ourselves as great recruiters and people developers, and I think that's been a big shift.  It was a big challenge, particularly in the UK, where there was still a lot of agency use at that time. So I think we're successfully coming through it; we're not done yet, though.

Do you see any benefits in outsourcing?

MR. I think in one instance, if you're in a business that is truly in decline and you have to do some maintenance recruitment, that might be a situation where you might employ an external professional. We use agencies to some extent, but from a business model standpoint. Wholesale outsourcing of recruitment would be one instance. 

One of the things that has to be true and has to be in place for you to recruit well from the inside is you have to have people recruiting for your business who absolutely love your business. So if you don't, you need to get yourself on a journey to get that, and perhaps on the way you need to leverage a heavier external outsourcing model.

The other thing is there's some specialized niche roles that my team is never going to be great at recruiting for, and frankly, we don't recruit for them very often. So we have great partners in place that we've strategically selected, who do love our business and have the passion and excitement about our business, engaged for those purposes.  Therefore, it makes sense, I think, if you're being thoughtful and strategic about it, but it doesn't replace that being a core capability of an HR function.

In terms of leadership and development, do you think it is possible to teach leadership?

MR. In our business we value know-how building; it's one of our cultural principles. And, you know, I think leaders can learn to be better leaders. One of the things that we believe is that in our company we have to all be focused on leading and developing and coaching leaders to be stronger. So for that reason we don't use a lot of external coaches.

Do you think anyone can be a leader?

MR. one thing that I've observed, and I don't know if this is true, but in my experience people who don't have self-awareness probably can't develop beyond where they are. And so, you know, I think it takes someone who is ready to look in the mirror and say, 'here are the things that I'm particularly good at doing and here are the things I'm frankly not so great at, and I'm ready to bring someone in or I'm ready to learn and develop in the areas that I'm not great at.'

I think if that's not in place - that fundamental self-awareness - I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time and energy trying to push that water uphill.

How do you go about identifying those with potential leadership skills, and then how do you nurture those potential leaders?

MR. How do you teach a leader leadership? I think the first thing you do is you develop them. And one of the things that we feel very passionately about is leaders in particular, everyone in our business, but particularly leaders, having a very thorough onboarding process. Executives sometimes push back on that; they're used to stepping in day one, trying to make an impact, demonstrate their value, and we've got a 90-day plan to teach and help them integrate into the culture and into the business. One, because that makes them more successful once they come through that onboarding; they know who people are, they know where things are; that's helpful. 

But the bigger thing, I guess to your point, is it teaches them the value and how important it is to us that we be an organization that values learning, and so much so that even the most senior executives in our business are going to pause for 90 days when they first join and just focus on learning. And what that does is it casts a shadow, especially with senior leaders.  Senior leaders who are learners, there's a big shadow that people see of that.  And people on their team, it's a natural human reaction, they emulate those behaviors. I think the other thing that's important is creating an environment and a culture that values learning, that makes it safe to not know the answers, and recognizes and rewards people who are know-how gatherers and know-how builders.

There may be some individuals reading this who harbor a very strong desire to get into the HR industry and progress. What advice would you give to those hoping to secure not just an HR role, but a senior HR role?

MR. If I'm going to be true to what I've said already I would say make sure you've got your own personal self-awareness, know what you bring to the table, know what you're really, really good at and make those towering strengths. And in the areas where you're not strong, bolster yourself; make sure you put a team around yourself to augment that. But mainly just make sure that that doesn't derail you. So that's one thing - know yourself.

The second thing is - know the business. First you have to be a business leader and you need to understand what is it that the business is trying to accomplish. What is the core strategy? From that point, start talking about how the people resources in that business can drive towards that.

I think the other thing is try to avoid the bureaucracy of HR. You know, I think a lot of times as HR professionals we get caught up in our jargon and focused on the policies and procedures. I think one thing that's important is that you're most focused on the business and you do those things that have to be done, but not majoring in those, really majoring in being a business leader.

What are your own career rules? How have you got to the point in your career where you are at right now?

MR. Wow, my career rules - what springs to mind is I like to work with really, really bright people, and I like to work with really bright people who are not arrogant.  And so as a rule for me, I know that that's a great culture fit for me. I like to try to keep pace with people; I like that internal competition. So making sure that I'm staying in a role and with people around me that challenge me is critical, and I think I get sharper and sharper because of that. I do constantly have that feeling that I'm not quite good enough, which keeps me pushing. So I think that's something that's been a bit of a formula for success for me.

I think the other thing, particularly since I joined Yum Brands [Reich's former company] that I didn't quite appreciate before, is the unbelievable importance of working in a place that has a great culture. I didn't know before, but working for Yum was an amazing experience for me because this notion of belief in all people sounds very jargon-y and it sounds very corporate-y, but this idea in a corporate environment that when we have a business conversation my first assumption is you're doing the right thing. Then after that I start to peel it apart and we ask questions. But from that basis, that just makes a fundamental difference in how it feels every day to get up and go to work. So I think those are things that I have learnt that have become rules for my career.

About

Misty Reich is the current VP of HR at KFC UK. She has previously worked as VP Global Talent Management at YUM! Brands, and VP HR at AT&T.

Famous fast-food faces

In much the same way it's always McDonalds that attracts the ire of disgruntled anarchist crusties when they embark on their biennial rampages through city centers the world over (KFC, Burger King and Starbucks - equally visible and prevalent symbols of the power of globalization and capitalism - always seem to get off Scot-free), so it seems that celebrities with a rags-to-riches tale to tell always recall themselves, at some point, toiling beneath those famous golden arches. So while KFC's alumni is content to remain steadfastly un-famous rather than infamous, HRM looks at some ex-McDonalds employees who have since gone on to bigger and brighter things...

Pink: For Pink it was more a case of 'get the grill started' than 'get the party started' long before she became a slightly troublesome household name at the turn of the millennium. During her teen years growing up in Pennsylvania, Pink endured a few years working at McDonalds, recalling the horror of actually having to do real work for a living in a recent Hollywood interview.

Fred Durst: The Limp Bizkit frontman used to work the morning shift at McDonalds during his early years growing up in Jacksonville, Florida. One wonders exactly what kind of inspiration the experience had on the rapper/singer - his band's name, perhaps? His love of bright red hats? His all-encompassing rage? Maybe we'll never know...

Sharon Stone: Another Pennsylvanian, Sharon Stone also enjoyed a stint at McDonalds during her teen years. However, as an aspiring actress, she followed her Basic Instinct and got out as soon as she could. Maybe the uniforms were too modest.

Jay Leno: Famous for The Tonight Show, in his earlier years Jay Leno was more of a breakfast star at McDonalds - serving up McMuffins and coffee rather than the golden nuggets of scathing wit and scalding opprobrium he later became renowned for.

Shania Twain: Working at McDonalds evidently didn't impress this young Canadian much - she didn't stick around for long once the record deals began to roll in. However, rumors that she penned her 1997 global smash 'You're Still the One' in homage to Ronald McDonald refuse to die.

Interview taken from meettheboss.tv